Academic leadership should not cost people their health, identity, or love of the work–but too often, it does.
That cost shows up most clearly in the roles we ask academic leaders to carry.
Department chairs are asked to carry one of the most complex leadership roles in higher education—often without the authority, preparation, or support the role demands.
At the same time, academic and faculty affairs leaders are charged with supporting them, while balancing competing priorities, limited resources, and inherited systems that were never designed for this level of complexity.
This is not a resilience problem. It is a design. problem. The expectations have evolved. The support structures have not.
My work focuses on closing that gap by changing how academic leadership is understood, supported, and sustained—starting with department chairs and extending to the institutional systems that shape how they lead.
Your role shapes where you begin.
The challenges of academic leadership look different depending on the role you hold.
If you are leading a department, you’ll find resources designed for the lived realities of chair leadership—navigating conflict, managing competing demands, and leading without burning out.
If you support chairs or academic leaders, you’ll find tools and approaches focused on sustainable leadership development at the institutional level—designed to move beyond one-off training and toward lasting capacity.
Choose the path that matches your role.
→ I’m a Department Chair
→ I Support Department Chairs
We don’t just develop chairs. We transform entire leadership ecosystems to create environments where chairs at every level are empowered, supported, and equipped to meaningfully impact the institution.
In Chair Leadership Team Design, we focus on three main areas:
1. Role Design: Redefining Leadership Potential
Align leadership roles with institutional vision
Design future-ready, sustainable role frameworks
Create clarity around purpose, priorities, and key responsibilities
Enable strategic job crafting and focused prioritization
2. Culture Design: Building a Solution-Oriented Culture
Establish collaborative norms and shared problem-solving practices
Develop frameworks for productive conflict resolution
Foster psychological safety to grow trust across teams
Build meaningful accountability systems
3. Systems Design: Optimizing Continuous Learning & Institutional Performance
Streamline decision-making protocols
Implement adaptive change management processes
Design innovative leadership development pathways
Create sustainable succession planning frameworks
By focusing on the entire leadership system, you create sustainable change that aligns with your institution’s mission and addresses daily challenges head-on. This systemic approach ensures your leadership team is purposefully structured to harness and leverage its diverse strengths, deepen collaboration, and accelerate collective success.
Hi, I’m Jennifer.
Over the past 20 years, I’ve been seated on all sides of the table—the staff member, the faculty member, the chair, an assistant dean, the only woman on multiple leadership teams.Throughout my career, I have held numerous roles in academic affairs and faculty development, including department chair, where I first saw the systemic challenges chairs face.
Like many chairs, I stepped into the role committed to doing right by my colleagues and institution—only to discover how much of the work depended on judgment calls no one had taught me how to make. The expectations were high, the support was thin, and the cost of getting it wrong felt personal.
That experience has shaped my work.. Since then, I have worked with hundreds of department chairs and faculty affairs leaders to create more sustainable approaches to academic leadership—ones that respect the complexity of the role and the people who hold it.
I believe academic leadership should not cost people their health, identity, or love of the work. In my experience, sustainable leadership is not about doing less—it’s about being better supported to do what matters most. When institutions provide clarity, shared expectations, and timely support, leaders are able to exercise sound judgment, sustain their capacity, and lead with steadiness over time.
My work focuses on helping create those conditions—for chairs and for the leaders responsible for supporting them.
Helping chairs lead well—and helping institutions support them—has been the throughline of my career.
We help chairs by transforming siloed roles into dynamic networks that think, act, and innovate as one—converting fragmented bureaucracies into solution-centered cultures.
From department chairs to presidential cabinets, we create interconnected leadership teams that deliver:
Enhanced Strategic Impact: Break down barriers between academic, administrative, and student-facing leaders to drive unified decision-making and advance institutional priorities.
Adaptive Problem-Solving: Transform how leaders collaborate to address complex challenges from enrollment pressures and faculty burnout to resource constraints by leveraging diverse expertise and perspectives across the institution.
Sustainable Leadership Culture: Build robust leadership pipelines and mentoring networks that develop emerging leaders while strengthening institutional continuity.
Resource Optimization: Coordinate investments and align resources more effectively by enabling leaders to work as an integrated system rather than competing interests.
Increased Stakeholder Engagement: Generate faculty and staff buy-in through inclusive leadership practices that demonstrate their voices are heard and valued in institutional direction-setting.
A New Model for Chair Leadership
The Department Chair Playbook (Forthcoming, under contract with Princeton University Press)
For too long, department chairs have been asked to lead through complexity without a clear map—and without permission to lead in ways that are sustainable.
The Department Chair Playbook offers a comprehensive roadmap for navigating one of academia’s most challenging leadership roles. Drawing from years of experience coaching hundreds of department chairs across diverse institutions, this practical guide features proven strategies to help you thrive amid today’s financial, cultural, and strategic challenges.
Drawing on years of coaching department chairs across a wide range of institutions, the book is grounded in lived leadership experience and offers a human-first approach to strategic, sustainable leadership. Whether you're stepping into your first leadership role, navigating the complexities of mid-term challenges, or planning your transition, The Department Chair Playbook equips you with the tools to lead effectively while protecting your well-being.
The suite of services at JSM are about higher education, reimagined.
Our signature programs help you make a deeper impact in higher education–whether you are an individual leader navigating the challenges of a current or new role, a team looking to improve their communication, or an institution who wants to be future-ready.
Leadership Intensives
Through our Leadership Reset Intensives or Leadership Transition Intensives, you will have the opportunity to map out your individual journey of impact so you can move from feeling overwhelmed and reactive to empowered and strategic. Whether you are transitioning to a new leadership role or looking to make a greater impact in your current one, JSM can help you identify and develop the behaviors you need to have to be an effective and healthy leader.
First Choice University Blueprint
The First Choice University Blueprint™ is a comprehensive one, two, or three-year engagement that transforms your leadership ecosystem through integrated executive and team coaching, leadership development, and succession planning. We help higher ed leaders and their teams build sustainable roles, systems, and cultures that deliver meaningful, student-centered change without burning out. Breaking free from the “This is the way we’ve always done it” mentality, we create a First Choice University for students and employees.
Department Chair Academy
Transform your role as department chair through our exclusive 9-month leadership community. Each cohort explores a critical leadership challenge monthly—from managing faculty burnout to driving institutional change—while building lasting connections with peers across institutions. Drawing on my experience as a former department chair and organizational communication scholar, I facilitate discussions that blend strategic frameworks with practical application, guiding the community through targeted exercises in role design, culture building, and systems thinking, while creating space for organic peer learning and problem-solving. Unlike traditional workshops, the Academy combines structured leadership development with a trusted space where department chairs can openly share challenges, workshop solutions, and develop their capabilities. Through this collaborative approach, you'll gain both practical strategies for immediate implementation and a sustainable network of fellow academic leaders who understand your unique challenges.
P.S. Are you a Department Chair? If you haven’t already taken the Department Chair Leadership Assessment to get your personalized development plan, head here.
Whether you're three days or three years into your role, this quick assessment creates your Personal Leadership Profile with actionable strategies tailored to your current situation—no generic advice.
Clients & Partners
Want to learn more about how I can support you, your department, and your institution?
Let’s get on an introductory chat to discuss coaching and training options.
4 Essential Leadership Competencies Chairs Need to Lead in the New Normal
What makes an effective department leader today, and how can we support their development? Through my research on higher education leadership, as well as coaching and training hundreds of department leaders, I have identified four key competencies that, when mastered and used in concert, enable department leaders to lead change during this momentous time in higher education: the abilities to anticipate (strategic mindset), interpret (manage complexity), appreciate (values difference), and decide (decision quality).